Michael Gove claims he is not an ideologue. He certainly surrounds himself with ideologues, many of whom are very interested in making lots of money for themselves or others. A quick look at what he says, and doesn’t say, explains why educationists are getting concerned about a link between the academies policy and a possible transfer of England’s schools to the for-profit sector.
The 2010 Conservative manifesto excluded this sector from its list of providers of new academies but by September 2010 the Association of Teachers and Lecturers could publish ‘England’s schools: not open for business’, a directory of over 30 organisations planning to exploit a market opportunity. Backbenchers have been working to correct the omission and in the run-up to last year’s conference season Michael Gove flew a kite on the Andrew Marr programme when he said that there was no need for the change at the moment. Nick Clegg responded vigorously, but on 29 May the following exchange took place at the Leveson Enquiry:
Robert Jay: According to a piece in the Guardian on 3 September 2011, under tab 28: ‘State sources close to [you] admitted last night that the education secretary had been hoping to allow free schools, which are set up by local people but still funded by the state, to make profits in the second term of a Tory-led government.’ Is that an accurate statement of your aspiration?
Michael Gove: It’s my belief that we could move to that situation …
There are already a few examples of state-funded schools being totally managed by for-profit companies, including Priory Special School in Taunton (Lilac Sky Schools) and Breckland Free School (IES – Internationella Engelska Skolan). Incidentally, the Swedish experience, like the darker side of the US Charter schools, shows that profits will be made in at least two ways. Cuts to the quality of provision create a revenue surplus. Schools are asset-stripped and sold on. Michael Gove has pet models from abroad but Sweden was dropped like a hot brick from his mantra when research showed just how badly their free schools are doing, largely as a result of being run for profit and not for children.
Many pragmatists might suggest there would be little harm in experimenting with a few schools, but the prospect of wholesale privatisation is clear. The intended sequence runs something like this. A very large proportion, perhaps all, of England’s schools become academies. (In law, free schools are a kind of academy.) Free-standing academies realise that complete independence is not all it’s cracked up to be, because they often need advice and support. They receive in their post daily invitations from organisations which claim to fill the gap. Schools enter a variety of arrangements with a huge range of providers, but the global experience shows a tendency for large for-profit organisations to take over many small chains. A Conservative-led government following the 2015 election allows total management by them on a large scale.
What’s wrong with that? If you don’t know, you’re out of step with the British people who know that schools, like the health service, are a public good and not to be privately owned. Shareholders want their return, and what goes into their pockets is taken away from pupils. Schools should be accountable to local communities, not shareholders.
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Martin Johnson is deputy general secretary of the ATL education union
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